simon baker? >> all right. two brothers squared off a short time ago and the people have spoken, and the doc won the debate on zynga. >> dr. j is the winner. that does it for us. catch more "fast money" tonight at 5:00 p.m. follow me on twitter@scottwapnercnbc. have a great rest of the day. "power lunch" starts right now. indeed it does, scott, and we begin with breaking news. welcome to "power lunch," everybody. i'm tyler mathison with sue herera and we begin with the news of the president set to give a major speech on the economy any moment now. it's the first in what is to be a series of back-to-back speeches over say the next 48 hours. the president laying out his agenda to fire up the u.s. economy. it comes on the heels of a new nbc poll that shows that only 45% of americans approve now of his performance. >> john harwood, of course, is with us from washington here at

nbc headquarters. that's an interesting percentage because lately we've seen the data getting better, but once again there's a disconnect, if you will, between the economic data and how americans feel. >> there's no question about it. they are feeling much more negatively about washington. not only is the president at 45%, congress is at 12%, that's their approval. >> that's true. >> record low in our nbc/"wall street journal" poll. what the president is trying to do is leverage whatever his ability is to use the pulley bull pit to break a deadlock in the economic argument. right now the two sides are so far apart. the best they can hope for is not to do damage to the economy this fall through some sort of a standoff over the debt limit in the budget >> is this going to be a speech filled with specifics, or is it going to be a higher altitude type of address in. >> higher altitude vision speech with the president trying to make the case that, yes, after a generation in which the ascendant ideas have been market forces, smaller government. >> right to. >> to say we need to spend some money on things like

infrastructure, education, and skills for the american workers so they can add value and compete for other countries. >> i read stories in the country that the gop is going to get very aggressive with the president and try to fight him tooth-and-nail. >> wouldn't be the first time. >> wouldn't be the first time and that this is part of a counteroffensive, so to speak. >> republicans are dug in especially in the house of representatives. they are moving along spending bills that really try to de-fund the president's priorities. they are insisting on obama care being de-funded. the president, of course, will never agree to that. that's why we're headed for this collision course. the president knows that. he's not really trying to influence so much that near-term collision. is counting on the fact that republicans know that the 2011 debt crisis did not work out well for them. they will ultimately stand down. he's trying to stand long-term and win the argument. >> anything different in this speech than anything he's put

out there before? >> not from what the white house has been telling us. it's not going to be these two speeches back-to-back. there will be a series of smaller policy level speeches, but i don't know that they are going to be conceptually different than the things he's laid out in a series of jobs plans which haven't gone anywhere in the congress. >> all of this comes against the backdrop of detroit filing for bankruptcy and losing a large percentage of its population over the years, and those jobs, you know, you just wonder what we can do on the jobless rate because a lot of the jobs now will never come back because technology has changed the job picture for so long and that's a picture the president has to deal with as well. >> and so many people unemployed so long that they are out of job market, and the longer you stay out of job market, the harder it is to get back in. >> something mr. bernanke is have worried about and has been all along. it will be interesting to see the response from the audience to the president's remarks because i think the first time he was at knox college he was

still a senator, correct? >> in 2005. the first major policy address he gave as a united states senator as his star was beginning to rise. you might have gotten an early glean there that he wanted to run for president which, of course, later materialized two years after that. >> we're wchg some of the pre-game ceremonies i guess getting ready there as the crowd gets ready. >> you said something a moment ago, john, that the president wants to start of tilt the conversation back, believing that his point of view that -- that the past 25 years or so have been about free market forces, smaller government, but a lot of people would say what are you talking about? government is as big or bigger and more intrusive from where i sit than it's ever been. >> well, of course, it depends on which part you're talking about. >> right, exactly, and there a couple different layers to the argument. government spending increased, the stimulus package in response to the financial crisis. we have an economy that has automatic stabilizers so that when the economy turns down, spending does of necessity go

up, but the domestic portion of spending long term, the long-term trend line is down, and the question is can the president reverse it? i was talking to austan goolsbee, and he said look at the success ronald reagan had beyond his presidency nim printing on the american brain the idea that government should be smaller, spending should be less, even though spending rose during reagan's presidency. >> the famous reagan line, the government isn't part of the solution, it's part of the problem or government is the problem and that was a different -- >> this president does not believe that. >> the other thing that was interesting this week, i guess i saw some house republicans particularly amidst the harder line tea party faction were even driving at defense spending to push it down or to restrain it. >> well, they are resisting the calls from their senate counterparts, republicans, who say we need to roll back the sequester cuts, especially as they relate to defense. john mccain is trying to make that case and is trying to work

with john mccain and a senate of republican factions breaking from the leadership. that's not happened in the house and we'll see if they can make that happen in the fall. >> you've covered washington tore so many years. have you ever seen the approval rating for congress as low as it is now or government as paralyzed as it seems to be on such important key issues? >> seen a lot of government paralysis, but the 12% approval, 83 disapproval for congress is the lowest in the quarter century history of the nbc/"wall street journal" poll, and it's not good news for anybody really because democrats hold the senate, republicans hold the house. it's kind of a pox on all your houses. >> and nobody likes either of them at all. >> exactly. >> you wonder how -- whether that contributes to the percentage reading that we got on the president's approval rating on the economy because the perception is that washington cannot function, and as a result of that, you know, it also impacts the president's rate. >> we had an election in november. there was a belief that the president rides a little bit higher after he's re-elected.

there was a belief maybe there would be a period of time in which they would get some business done and instead we've had irs controversy, nsa controversy, even the things like the george zimmerman trial which exacerbated some of the racial feelings in the country, polarization by race. all of those things have tended to depress the public mood, even while consumer confidence is rising. >> and the fight over the appointments, including the recess appointments where the language between the senate leaders were -- was so poisonous. >> you mean like you're the worst leader in the history of the senate. >> the worst leader in the history of the senate, and i'm sure that that sentiment was reciprocated in some ways. >> the parliamentary equivalent of dropping nuclear bombs. >> let's go upstate to galesburg, illinois to chicago and rick sell who has the five-year notes up for auction. i'm sure he has some percentages and some numbers. rick in. >> thanks, tyler, yes. auctioned off 35 billion 5s,

yield 4.51, pretty close to where they were trading, i gave it a "c" for charlie. indirects were strong and directs half of the auction average at 8.3, a little off for that, but 2.46 was the bid to cover against the 2.80 ten auction average. that was the weakest. other than the last auction you have to go back to september of '09. not a good trend. "c" for charlie. tomorrow is the seven-year. back to the game. >> all right. thank you very much, rick. let's go down to the floor of the new york stock exchange. bob pisani is joining us now to talk about the market. we're off about 50 points or so, bob. >> rare down day. started on the downside and moved straight down t.moved down again at 10:00 a.m. when we got new home sales numbers better than expected. that's not good news. people think now tapering is more likely and bottom line is good news is bad news for the moment so the dow moved down and hit bottom somewhere around 10:30 eastern time.

home builders and reits and utilities are on the downside now. important thing overall, home building numbers pretty good. we had some of the meritage homes did well, but still most to the downside. caterpillar shaving 13 points off the dow. lowered their guidance. construction is doing a little better. airlines just terrific. delta and u.s. air had outstanding numbers. delta earned almost $1, an amazing turnaround in about five quarters. terrific numbers from all of the big aerospace companies. boeing is down a little bit. terrific numbers and they boosted their outlook and northrop grumman boosted their outlook. >> the president will be speaking momentarily. to the nasdaq, seema mody is following the big movers on the back of a's results yesterday. >> apple and its bottom line and surge in iphone sales is helping the stocks soar and that's why

you can see the nasdaq right now outperforming the dow and the s&p 500, but it's not just apple. we got soiled earnings from electronic arts, emc, juniper networks as well as seagate technology. sue, back over to you. >> it will be interesting, john, to see how the president works this crowd. obviously a very enthusiastic crowd, as we mentioned, his first speech was there when he was a senator, and we did get that idea that perhaps he was going to rub fn for the preside. are these all students? who is in this particular crowd? >> i think it's a mix of students and poem in the community as well at some, you know, members of the faculty at the college. when you talk about a small liberal arts college, everybody wants to be there because this is an extremely special thing. it's the president's home state. we're now hearing ruffles and flourishes. the support about to walk in and take the stage, and all the iphones are going aloft to take

pictures. >> i belt they are. let's listen in. ♪ >> john, you had that right about the hands going up in the air. not moment is free in the life toyed from the iphone. >> this is one thing they didn't have when they spoke, the specter of the presidency, the aura of the presidency. >> hello, galesburg. it's good to be home in illinois. it is good to be back. it's good to be back. thank you. thank you so much, everybody. thank you so much. thank you. thank you. thank you so much. everybody have a seat. have a seat.

well, it is good to be back. i want to -- i want to, first of all, thank knox college. i want to thank knox college and your president theresa amott-for-having me here today. give theresa a big round of applause. i want to thank your congresswoman sherry bustos who is here. where's sherry? there she is. >> we've got governor quinn here. i'm told we've got your lieutenant governor sheila simon is here. there she is.

attorney general lisa madigan is here. i see a bunch of my former colleagues, some folks who i haven't seen in years, and i'm looking forward to saying hi to. one in particular i've got to mention, one of my favorites from the illinois senate, john sullivan is in the house. you know, john was one of my earliest supporters when i was running for the u.s. senate, and it came in really handy because he's got like ten brothers and his wife and sisters and his wife's got ten brothers and sisters so they have got this entire precinct just in their family, and they all look like john, the brothers do, so, you know, he doesn't have to go to every event. he can just send one of his brothers out. it is good to see them. dick durbin couldn't make it today, but he sends his best, and we love dick.

he is doing a great job. and we've got one of my favorite neighbors, the senator from missouri, claire mccaskill in the house because we're going to missouri later this afternoon. and all of you are here, and it's great to see. and i hope everybody is having a wonderful summer. the weather is perfect. whoever was in charge of that, good job. so eight years ago i came here to deliver the commencement address for the class of 2005. things were a little different back then. for example, hi no gray hair.

or a motorcade, didn't even have a prompter. in fact, there was a problem in terms of printing out the speech because the printer didn't work here, and we had to drive it in from somewhere. but it was my first big speech as your newest senator and on the way here i was telling sherry and claire about how important this area was, one of the areas that i spent the most time in outside of chicago and how much it represented what's best in america and folks who are willing to work hard and do right by their families, and i came here to talk about what a changing economy was doing to the middle class, and what we as a country needed to do to give every american a chance to get ahead in the 21st century. see, i had just spent a year

traveling the state and listening to your stories of proud maytag workers losing their jobs when the plant moved down to mexico. a lot of folks here remember that, of teachers whose salaries weren't keeping up with the rising cost of groceries. of young people who had the drive and the energy but not the money to afford a college educati education. so these were stories of families, who had worked hard. believed in the american dream. but they felt like the odds were increasingly stacked against them and they were right. things had changed. in the period after world war ii a growing middle class was the

edngine of our prosperity. whether you owned a company or swept its floors or worked anywhere in between this country offered you a basic bargain. a sense that your hard work would be rewarded. with fair wages and decent benefits and the chance to buy a home, to save for retirement and most of all a chance to hand down a better life for your kids. but over time that engine began to stall, and a lot of folks here saw it. that bargain began to fray. technology made some jobs obsolete. global competition sends a lot of jobs overseas. it became harder for unions to fight for the middle class? washington doled out bigger tax cuts to the very wealthy and

smaller minimum wage increases for the working poor. and so what happened was the link between higher productivity and people's wages and salaries was broken. used to be that as companies did better, as profits went higher, workers also got a better deal. and that started changing so the income of the top 1% nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 2007, but the typical families' income barely budged. and towards the end of those three decade, a housing bubble, credit cards, a churning financial sector was keeping the economy artificially juiced up so sometimes it papered over

some of these long-term trends. by the time i took office in 2009 as your president, we all know the bubble had burst and it cost millions of americans their jobs and their homes and their savings, and i know a lot of folks in this area were hurt pretty bad and the decades long erosion that had been taking place, the erosion of middle class security was suddenly lay bare for everybody to see. >> now today five years after the start of that great recession america has fought its way back. we fought our way back. so together we saved the auto industry, took on a broken health care system.

we invested in new american technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil. we doubled wind and solar power. together we put in place tough new rules on the big banks and protections to crack down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card compani companies. we changed the tax code too skewed in favor of the wealthiest. and we changed that and we locked in tax cuts for 98% of americans and we asked those at the top to pay a little bit more.

so you add it all up and over the past 40 months or businesses have created 7.2 million new jobs. this year we're off to our strongest private sector job growth since 1999, and because we bet on this country suddenly foreign companies are, too. and right now more of honda's cars are made in america more than any other place on earth. airbus, the european aircraft company, they are building new planes in alabama. and american companies like ford are replacing outsourcing with insourcing. they are bringing jobs back home. we sell more products made in america to the rest of the world than ever before. we produce more natural gas than

any country on earth. we're about to produce more of our own oil than we buy from abroad for the first time in nearly 20 years. the cost of health care is growing at its slowest rate in 50 years, and the our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years. so thanks to the grit and resilience and determination of the american people, the folks like you, we've been able to clear away the rubble from the financial crisis. we've started to lay a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth, and,

you know, it's happening in our own personal lives as well, right? a lot of us tightened our belts, shed debt, maybe cut up a couple of credit cards, refocused on those things that really matter. as a country we've recovered faster and gone further than most other advanced nations in the world, with new american revolutions and energy and technology and manufacturing and health care. we're actually poised to reverse the forces that batter the middle class for so long and start building an economy where everyone who works hard can get aha ahead. but, and here's the big but, i'm here to tell you today that we're not there yet. we all know that. we're not there yet.

we've got more work to do. even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, nearly all the income gains of the past ten years have continued to flow to the top 1%. the average ceo has gotten a raise of nearly 40% since 2009. the average american earns less than he or she did in 1999. and companies continue to hold back on hiring those who have been out of work for some time. today more students are earning their degree, but soaring costs saddle them with unsustainable debt. health care costs are slowing down, but a lot of working families haven't seen any of those savings yet. the stock market rebound helped a lot of families get back much of what they had lost in their

401(k)s, but millions of americans still have no idea how they are going to be able to retire. so in many ways the trends that i spoke about here in 2005, eight years ago, and the trend of a winner take owl economy where a few are doing better and better while everybody else just treads water. those trends have been made worse by the recession, and that's a problem. this growing inequality, not just a result, inequality of opportunity, this growing inequality, it's not just morally wrong, it's bad economics, because when middle class families have less to spend, guess what? businesses have fewer consumers. when wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy.

when the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart, it undermines the very essence of america, that idea that if you work hard you can make it here, and that's why reversing these trends has to be washington's highest priority. it has to be washington's highest priority. >> certainly my highest priority. unfortunately, over the past couple of years in particular, washington hasn't just ignored this problem. too often washington's made

things worse. because i have to say because i'm looking around the room. i have friends here who are not just democrats, but who are republicans and that i worked with in the state legislature and they did great work but we've got a sidable group of lawmakers suggest that they wouldn't vote to pay the very bills that congress racked up and that harmed a fragile recovery in 2011 and we can't afford to repeat that. then rather than reduce our deficits with a scalpel, by cutting out programs that we don't know, fixing ones that we do need that maybe are in need of reform, making government more efficient, instead of doing that, we've got folks who have

insisted on leaving in place called a meat cleaver called the sequester that's cost jobs, harmed growth and hurt our military, it's gutted investments in education and science and medical research, almost every credible economist will tell you it's been a huge drag on this recovery, and it means that we're underinvesting in the things that this country needs to make it a magnet for good jobs this gridlock's gotten worse. i didn't think that was possible. the good news is a growing number of republican senators are looking to join their democratic counterparts and try to get things done in the senate. so that's good news.

for example, they work together on an immigration bill that economists say will boost our economy by more than $1 trillion, stlenten border security, make the system work. well, you've got a faction of republicans in the house who won't even give that bill a vote and that same group gutted a farm bill that america's farmerers depend on and america's most vulnerable children depend on. and if you ask some of these folks, some of these folks mostly in the house about their economic agenda how it is that they will strengthen the middle class, they will shift the topic to out-of-control government spending despite the fact that we've cut the deficit by nearly a half as a share of the economy since i took office.

or they will talk about government assistance for the poor. despite the fact that they have already cut early education for vulnerable kids. they have already cut insurance for people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own or they will bring up obama care. this is tried and true. despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as businesses had at the same point in the last recovery when there was no obama care. >> i appreciate that.

that's what this is about. that's what this is about. that's what we've been fighting for. but with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, washington's taken its eye off the ball, and i'm here to say this needs to stop. this needs to stop. this moment does not require short-term thinking. it does not require having the same old steal debates. our focus has to be on the basic economic issues that matter most to you. the people we represent. . that's what we have to spend our time on, our energy on and our focus on.

and as washington prepares to enter another budget debate, the stakes could not be higher. the countries that are passive in the face of a global economy, those countries will lose the competition for good jobs. they will lose the competition for high living standards. that's why america has to make it necessary for long-term growth and shared responsibility, educating our workhorse and upgrading our transportation system and upgrading our information networks. that's what we need to be talking about. that's what washington needs to be focused on.

and that's why over the next several weeks in towns across this country i will be engaging the american people in this debate. >> i'll lay out my ideas on the cornerstones of what it means to be in the middle class in america and what it takes to work your way into the middle class, job security with good wages, a good education, a home to call your own. affordable health care when you get sick, a secure retirement even when you're not rich, reducing poverty, reducing inequality, growing opportunity. that's what we need. that's what we need.

that's what we need right now. that's what we need to be focused on. now some of these ideas i've talked about before. some of the ideas i offer will be new. some will require congress. some i will pursue on my own. some will benefit them right away and some will be fully

implemented. the key is not to bounce from crisis to crisis. we need a long-term american strategy based on steady persistent effort to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades. that has to be our project. now, of course, we'll keep pressing on other priorities. i want to get the immigration bill done. we still need to work on gun violence. we've got to -- we've got to continue to end the war in afghanistan, rebalance our fight against al qaeda.

we need to combat climate change and stand up for civil rights and stand up for women's rights. so all those issues are important, and the we'll be fighting on every one of those issues. but if we don't have a growing thriving middle class then we won't have the resources to solve a lot of these problems. we won't have the resolve, the optimism and sense of unity that we need to solve many of these other issues. in this effort i'll look to work with republicans as well as democrats wherever i can and i sincerely believe that there are members of both parties who understand what's at stake and i will welcome ideas from anybody across the political spectrum,

but i will not allow gridlock or inaction or wiffleful indifference to get in our way. >> that means whatever executive authority i have to help the middle class, i'll use it. . where i can't act on my own. i'll call ceos and philanthropists and college presidents, i'll call labor leaders. i'll call anybody who can help and enlist them in our efforts. because the choices that we, the

people, make right now will determine whether or not every american has a fighting chance in the 21st century, and it will lay the foundation for our children's future, our grandchildren's future for all americans, so let me give you a quick preview of what i'll be fighting for and why. the first cornerstone of the strong growing middle class has to be, as i said before, an economy that generates more good jobs in durable industries. that's how this area was built. that's how america prospered because anybody who was willing to work, they can go out there and they can find themselves a job and they can built a life for themselves and their family. now over the past four years for the first time since the 1990s the number of american manufacturing jobs has actually gone up instead of down. that's the good news.

but we can do more. i'll do more to push manufacturers to bring more jobs back to the united states. we're going to continue to focus on stlat jis to make sure that our tax code rewards companies that are not shipping jobs overseas but creating jobs right here in the united states of america. we want to make sure that we're going to create strategies to make sure of job and wind and solar and natural gas that are lower in costs and statement reducing dangerous carbon pollution happened right here in the united states. and something sherry and i were

talking coming over here, i'm going to push for more manufacturing institute, regions left behind for global competition into global centers for cutting-edge jobs so let's tell the world that america is open for business. i know there's an old site right here in galesburg over on monmouth avenue. let's put some folks to work. tomorrow i'll visit the port of jacksonville to look at what america has always done best which is building things. pat quinn was talking about how i came over the don moffatt

bridge, you nknow. >> but we've got ports to do that aren't ready for the new super tankers that will begin passing through the panama canal in two years time. if we don't get that done those tankers will go somewhere else. we've got 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for medicare. businesses depend on our transportation systems, on our power grids, on our communications networks and rebuilding them creates good paying jobs right now that can't be outsourced. and by the way, this isn't a democratic idea.

republicans built a lot of stuff. this is the land of lincoln. lincoln was all about building itself. first republican president and yet as a share of our economy we invest less in our infrastructure than we did two decades ago and that's inefficient at a time it's as cheap as it's been since the 1950s to build things. it's inexcusable at a time when so many of the work eers who bud stuff for a living are sitting at home waiting for a call. the longer we put this off the more expensive it will be the less competitive we'll be. businesses of tomorrow will not locate near old roads and outdated ports. they will relocate to places with high speed internet and high-tech schools and systems that move air and auto traffic faster and not to mention will get parents home quicker from

work because we'll be eliminating some of these traffic jams and we can watch all that have happen in other countries or choose to make it happen here in the united states. in an age where jobs have no borders, they will seek out most talented individuals and reward folks with the skills and talent they need, they will reward those folks with good pay. the days when the wages for a worker with a high school degree could keep pace with earnings with somebody who got some sort of higher education, those days are over. everybody here knows that. there are a whole bunch of

people here whose dad or grands grands -- or grandps had a job, global technology and competition aren't going away. the old days aren't coming back so we can either throw up our hands and resign ourselves to diminishing living standards or we can pull together and fight back and win. that's what we have to do. and that brings me to the second cornerstone of a strong middle class and everybody knows it, an education that prepares our children and our workers for the

global competition that they are going to face. and if you think education section pensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs in the 21st century. if we don't make this investment we're going to put our kids, our workers and our country at a competitive dis advantaadvantag decades so we have to begin in the earliest years and that's why i'm going to keep pushing to make high quality pre-school available for every 4-year-old in america. not just because we know it works for our kids but because

it provides a vital support system for working parents, and i'm going to take action in the education area to spur innovation that don't require congress, so today, for example, as we speak, as we speak, if the agencies are moving on my plan to connect students to high speed internet over the next five years. we're making that happen right now. we've already begun working with innovative ideas to teach our kids skills for the high-tech economy and we'll also push for efforts to train workers for new jobs. here in galesburg, a lot of workers that were laid off in maytag chose to enroll in training programs like the one

at carl sanberg college, and -- and while it didn't pay off for everyone, a lot of the folks who were retrained found jobs that suited them more than the ones they had lost and that's why i've asked congress to create initiatives so work eers can be retrained without having to leave their hometown. i'm going to challenge ceos -- i'm going to challenge ceos from some of america's best companies to hire more americans who have got what it takes to fill that job opening but have been laid off for so hong that nobody is giving their resume an honest look. i'm also going to use the power of my office over the next few months to highlight the topics that's straining the budget of

the american family and that's the soaring cost of higher education. everybody is touched by this, including your president who had a whole bunch of loans he had to pay off. three years ago i worked with democrats to reform the student loan system so that taxpayer dollars stopped padding the pockets of big banks and instead helped more kids afford college. then i capped loan repayments at 10% of monthly incomes for responsible borrowers so that if someone graduated and they decided to take a teaching job, for example, that didn't pay a lot of money, they knew they wouldn't have to pay 10% of their income and they could afford to go into a profession that they loved.

that's in place right now. and this week we're working with both parties -- this week we're working with both parties to reverse the doubling of student loan rates because of congressional inaction. >> so this is all a good start, but it isn't enough. families and taxpayers can't just keep paying more and more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep going up and up and up. we'll never have enough loan money. we'll never have enough grant money to keep up with costs that are going up fi5%, 6%, 7% a yea. we've got to get more out of what we pay for. now some colleges are testing new approaches to shorten the path to a degree or blending

teaching with online learning to help students master material and earn credits in less time and some states are testing new ways to fund college based not just on how many students enroll but how many of them graduate, how well do they do? so this afternoon i'll visit the university of central missouri to highlight their efforts to deliver more bang for the buck to their students, and in the coming months i'll lay out an aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs and improve value for middle class student and their families. it is critical that we make sure the college is affordable for every single america who is willing to work for it.

so you've got a good job. you've got a good education. those have always been the key stepping stones into the middle class. but a home of your own has always been the clearest expression of middle class security. for most families that's your biggest asset. for most families that's where, you know, your life's work has been invested. that happened when we saw millions of middle class families experience their home value plummeting. the good news is over the past four years we've helped homeowners stay in their homes and stayed sales are up and prices are up and fewer americans see their home under water.

but the key now is to increase homeownership not based on a bubble but based on a solid information where buyers and lenders play by the same set of results, rules that are transparent and clear and fair, so already i've asked congress to pass a really good economic idea one championed by mitt romney's economic adviser and this is the idea to give every home the chance to refinance their mortgage while rates are still low so they can save thousands of dollars a year. it would be like a tax cut for families who can refinance, and i'm acting on my own to cut red tape for responsible families who want to get a mortgage but the bank is saying no. we'll work with both parties to

turn the page on fannie mae and freddie mac and build a housing environment solid for generations. we need to do more to strengthen home ownership in this country. and i hear from too many people across the country face to face or in letters that they sent me that they feel as if retirement is just receding from their grasp. it's getting part and part away. today they have millions of balancings going up and some of the losses taking place during the financial crisis have been recovered, but we still live with an upside down system where those at the top, folks like me

get generation tax incentives to save while tens of millions of hard americans while they are struggling, they get none of those breaks at all, so as we work to reform our tax code, we should find new ways to make it easier for workers to put away money and free middle class familiar his from the fear that they won't be able to retire. and if congress is looking for a bipartisan place to get started i should just say they don't have to look far. we mentioned immigration reform. economists show immigration reform makes undocumented workers pay their full fair share of taxes and that actually shores up the social security system for years so we should get that done.

good job. good education for your kids, home of your own, secure retirement. fifth, i'm going to keep focusing on health care because middle class families and small business owners deserve the security of knowing that neither an accident or an illness is going to threaten the dreams that you've worked a lifetime to build. as we speak we're well on our way to fully implementing the affordable care act. we're going to implement it. if you're one of the 85% of americans who have health insurance either through a job or medicare or medicaid, you don't have to do anything, but you do have new benefits and better protections than you did before. you may not know it, but you do.

free checkups. mammograms, discounted medicines if you're on medicare. that's what the affordable care act means. you're already getting a better deal. no lifetime limits. if you don't have health insurance then starting on october 1st private plans will actually compete for your business, and you'll be able to comparison shop online. there will be a marketplace online like if you would buy a flat screen tv or plane tickets or anything else you're doing online and you'll be able to buy an insurance package that fits your budget and is right for you. and if you're one of the up to half of all americans who have been sick or have a pre-existing condition, if you look at this auditorium, about half of you probably have a pre-existing condition that insurance companies could use to not give you insurance if you lost your job or lost your insurance, well, this law means that beginning january 1st insurance

companies will finally have to cover you and charge you the same rates as everybody else even if you have a pre-existing condition. that's what the affordable care act does. that's what it does. look, i know because i've been living it because there are folks out there who are actively working to make this law fade and i don't understand what their logic is, why they think giving insurance to folks who don't have it and making folks with insurance a little more secure, why they think that's a bad thing, but despite the politically motivated misinformation campaign, the states that have committed

themselves to making this law work are finding the competition and choice are actually pushing costs down so just last week new york announced that premiums for consumers who bee the insurance in the online marketplaces will be at least 50% lower than what they are paying today, 50% lower. so folks, premiums in the individual market will drop by 50% and for them and millions of americans who have been able to cover the sick kids for the first time like this gentleman who said his daughter has health insurance or covering their employees more cheaply or able to have their kids who are younger than 25 or 26 state on the plan, for all those folks,

you'll have the security of knowing that everything you've worked hard for is no longer one illness away from being wiped out. finally as we work to strengthen middle class security, decent wages and benefits, a good education, a home of your own, retirement security, health care security. i'm going to make the case for in we rebuild ladders of opportunity for all those americans who haven't quite made it yet, who are working hard but are still suffering poverty wages, who are struggling to get full-time work, there are a lot

of folks who are still struggling out here too many people in poverty. here in america we've never guaranteed success. that's not what we do. more than some other countries we expect people to be self-relia self-reliant. nobody is going to do something for you. we've tolerated a little more inequality for the sake of a more dynamic, more adaptable economy. that's all for the good. but that idea has always been combined with a commitment to upward mobility, the idea that no matter how poor you started, if you're willing to work hard and discipline yourself and defer gratification you can make it, too. that's the american idea.